What Happened?

Shares of off-price retail company Burlington Stores (NYSE:BURL) jumped 13.7% in the pre-market session after the company reported impressive fourth quarter 2024 results which beat analysts' profit and EPS expectations. The key highlight for the quarter was the strong 6% growth in comparable store sales, significantly exceeding the company's guidance of 0% to 2%. Looking ahead to fiscal 2025, Burlington anticipates overall sales growth of 6% to 8%, with comparable sales expected to increase by up to 2%. Despite this optimistic outlook, management remains cautious due to ongoing economic uncertainty. Overall, this was a decent quarter, but expectations were likely low given concerns about overall consumer health and very uneven quarterly results from retail peers.

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What The Market Is Telling Us

Burlington’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 6 moves greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Burlington and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business. 

The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 9 months ago when the stock gained 19.7% on the news that the company reported a "beat and raise" quarter. Revenue came in slightly ahead of analysts' estimates. However, BURL blew past analysts' non-GAAP operating income and EPS expectations, highlighting its ability to manage costs and drive profitability. The performance was even more impressive considering some of the challenges called out during the quarter, including a slow start in February, partly attributed to disruptive weather and delayed tax refunds. 

Lookin ahead, its full-year earnings guidance was raised and exceeded Wall Street's estimates. On the other hand, its earnings forecast for the next quarter missed analysts' expectations. Zooming out, we think this was still a very good quarter.

Burlington is down 9.7% since the beginning of the year, and at $258.16 per share, it is trading 12.6% below its 52-week high of $295.49 from December 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Burlington’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,205.

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